August is always slow. Having three Monday Links posts on the front page isn’t really a good look though, so hopefully stuff starts happening soon :(

Seattle is taking a step in the right direction with regard to more progressive thought than “skaters = skateparks.” Except the thought is a bit better than the execution, because the “skateable sculpture” they built looks absurd and not a good way (it’s designed by a snowboarder…and Torey Pudwill.) Unsurprisingly, even when not making full-fledged skate plazas, the Germans are ahead of the curve with the whole multi-functional skateable sculpture thing.

Skaters aren’t the only ones obssessed with the VHS format. Is it safe to say that unlike straight-to-VHS B-movies from the eighties, most skate videos initially released on VHS that are worth saving have already been preserved on new mediums?

*BONUS* QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: The NBA season is two-and-a-half months away, so here’s White Chocolate with a bounce pass to alley oop in a Taiwanese exhibition game from this summer. FYI: Derrick Rose returns in a season opener against the Heat, and the Knicks’ second game is in Chicago. Also, the Knicks play the Thunder at MSG on Christmas (their last meeting was a good time.)

Quote of the Week: “I hate hearing people drive by blasting that ‘Ain’t Worried About Nothing’ song when I’m worrying about landing a trick.” — Lurker Lou

Spot Updates: 1) The final remodeled version of Bubble Banks = Two two-up-two-down manual pads, and some wooden benches that are going to get knobbed, but that you could still ollie over. 2) One of the few spots in lower Manhattan that you had a chance of not getting kicked out of is, in the best case scenario, not going to be skateable for a long time.

Quote of the WeekInquisitive Gentleman: “How are you doing?”Torey Goodall: “Good. Pretty bad.”

Exit Skateshop in Philadelphia (825 N 2nd Street) has a restock of QS gear. No, they do not have RiRi cruisers. Also, we will be going out of the country for a bit, so all orders placed after 5 P.M. E.S.T. on Tuesday, July 23, will not be shipped until August 7th. Please place any orders for QS merchandise in the next day or so if you don’t want to wait two weeks for delivery. (P.S. There are not many larges left.)

In case you missed it, Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock talked about the virtues of skateboarding in the latest episode of Seinfeld’s web show, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. The whole episode is great, but skip to the 11:35 mark for the part in question, or check the soundbyte that 5,000 people Instagrammed last week.

It may have a vague title (…most skate scenes are not California), but This Ain’t California is a detailed pseudo-documentary about a crossroads of recent world history and lesser-known local skate lore.

Marten Persiel’s tale centers around Denis “Panik” Paraceck and his 1980s skate crew in the German Democratic Republic, the portion of Germany that was a Soviet satellite state until 1990. The story is told through Panik’s friends as they gather to reminisce in 2011 upon learning he was killed as a soldier in Afghanistan. This Ain’t California is seemingly presented as fact through old footage, modern interviews and animation sequences, but the viewer suspects the main character may not have existed early on in the film, due to “archival” footage that is a bit too-good-to-be-true, and several obviously scripted moments. Some Googling will reveal that the character of Panik is played by German model and skater, Kai Hillebrandt, and that the film is a blend of both reenactments and real home movies.

Though Panik is fictionalized, he is a composite character found in any skate crew out there — the hometown hero who will try the gnarliest trick to further his legend, who could be good at just about anything but chooses to skate, often to the chagrin of parents. (Even superficially, one would think the actor’s resemblance to Natas Kaupas was part of the casting decision.) Denis Paraceck may not be real, but every skater knows someone like him.

America could learn a lot from the Germans. They took hunks of granite from an old government building and used them to produce an amazing skate spot on an obsolete airfield. Imagine if all that City Hall granite actually went towards making a skate plaza for the city of Philadelphia? How many city plazas get torn out and reduced to scrap each year in the U.S? The “solution” is so simple, but gets turned into such a stupid mess because of zoning / permits / $$$ / insurance / red tape.

“Now, the padless deep-pool and vert work of Ben Hatchell, Grant Taylor, Elijah Berle and Jaws may for the coming generation obviate pads and helmets altogether, because, when everybody’s good enough to do every trick, there is no point in falling and getting hurt.” Boil the Ocean dwells on the future of skateboard retail.